The story below is from our May/June 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
The Washburns continue their stewardship of one of the Roanoke Valley’s oldest family businesses as it continues dramatic changes into the 2020s.
Mary Washburn King cracks a string of jokes about some of the Darwin-moments in the locksmith business, finishing with the woman who was locked in her house for two weeks, when all she had to do was crawl out a window.
And then there was the guy who needed a locksmith to open his door because his key wouldn’t work. “Just spray it with WD-40,” King suggested. “I can’t get the door open to do that,” said the client. Mary didn’t bother to tell him she meant to spray the keyhole. “We’ll be over in a bit,” she said.
But the moments aren’t all Darwinian. Some are tragic and frightening. Like the beaten wives who are locked in. The dead bodies—some gruesomely dead—behind those doors. And the stories, the sad, sad stories.
Sometimes the stories leave Mary’s brother, Buck Washburn, feeling like he made a great decision when he joined his father at Meador Locksmith, which is now headquartered in Vinton. “I got a call from a guy whose locks I changed after he’d been broken into a couple of times,” says Buck. “He said he had just had his first sleep in two years. That was satisfying.”
What is also satisfying is that Buck’s son, James Washburn, is following in the business and that his parents, Cindy and Danny—both in their 70s—have comfortably retired from a business they bought in 1982, when it was already 50 years old. Mary runs the office and Buck’s son James is a certified locksmith.
(Side note: All the Washburn men are named James Daniel Washburn.)
Danny and Cindy bought Meador Locksmith’s for $28,000 ($76,000 in 2021 dollars) from Virginia (“Gerty”) Meador Walters, whose husband, the founder in 1932, had died. They agreed to retain the name. Gerty ran it for some years, then remarried and her second husband became involved. Danny went to work for them in 1980 after being with DuPont, while Cindy was a registered nurse.
Danny was fully certified by the time Cindy joined him in 1982, leaving her job at Community Hospital. She learned both the business and the craft, giving her the opportunity to do some of the basic repairs in the shop when Danny was out on a job.
Buck grew up in the shop and, says Cindy, he always had a gift for fixing just about anything mechanical. At 12, he had his own locksmith tool kit and he had actually put together a pneumatic door closer when he was 6. He was working off-site jobs in junior high. “Buck always did his research,” says Cindy, “and it carries over today.”
Their work has pretty well covered the gamut: small household jobs, bigger jobs at the home, colleges, prisons, banks, safes, even vehicles, though no longer. Cars became too difficult and too expensive, a skill for a specialty company. Same with hotels/motels when keys became plastic cards. Meador Locksmiths even does some secret work for the government.
Buck was fortunate enough to serve his apprenticeship before that became impossible for those as young as he was. “The license killed apprenticeships,” says Danny. It also killed off a generation of ex-cons who had gone into locksmithing, most honestly, some with 20 or more years in the profession.
The profession has changed so much over the years, says Danny, that “I can’t do what Buck and James do. I’d have to go back to school” if he came out of retirement. Buck says that though much has changed, much remains steady. “We still have to create on the fly because sometimes the parts or tools we need don’t exist and we have to figure how to make them. Truth is that most locks aren’t rebuilt any more. They’re replaced.”
The current big push is electronics, even—maybe especially—in homes and Buck cautions that “the pretty lock is not always the best for what you need.” After touring facilities needing locks, he says, “I talk about where potential break-in points are and suggest what’s needed.” But often homeowners want the best looking locks without considering the safest.
And that’s when he has to make a safety sale, though I can usually secure a house for less than what a big-screen TV costs.”
The story above is from our May/June 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!
